Kaipat said the Department of Labor will publish a list of previously documented foreign workers who have overstayed here to seek underground employment.
“The commonwealth has been burdened over the years with reports that there were as many as 8,000 to 10,000 overstayers. Those reports were vastly exaggerated. We published a list on Dec. 1, 2008 of all overstayers from the years 2003 through 2007, and there were 624 people on this list,” she said in her latest report to the Legislature pursuant to Public Law 15-108, the new labor statute.
She said there is generally very low unemployment rate among foreign workers as they enter the CNMI with contracts.
But with the islands’ dismal economic conditions, some who lost their jobs may have overstayed.
“Unemployment is the largest single reason for workers falling into overstayer status. Because there was very little unemployment among foreign workers in the years 1985 through 2002, we anticipate that when we complete the Phase III and Phase IV reviews, there will be relatively few overstayers from those years,” she told lawmakers.
The amnesty program in the late 1990s substantially reduced the number of illegal workers on the islands, authorities believe.
“In addition, the commonwealth had an amnesty program prior to 2002 which converted some workers from overstayer status to legal status. The number of actual overstayers from among those who entered in the years 2003 to 2008 and are currently still in the commonwealth will continue to decrease over time because of voluntary departures and deportations,” said Kaipat.
The first two phases of the labor department’s goal to identify and repatriate overstayers in the CNMI from 2003 to 2007 have been accomplished.
Funding to review older records, however, has yet to be secured due to the local government’s cash-strapped situation.
Kaipat said the government should consider seeking the assistance of the federal government to complete the project ahead of the full implementation of the federalization law in June.
“The department has no funding for these projects in its FY 2009 budget and recommends that funding be sought from the Office of Insular Affairs or Department of Homeland Security for this purpose so that these projects can be completed before June 1, 2009,” she said.
The labor department uses computer generated data with information about the arrival date of a foreign hire and his permit expiration and exit date, if any, to determine if one has overstayed.
“The computer-generated data are hand-checked with other records, as necessary, to ensure accuracy as to factors that could affect each person’s current status. Each person who is identified as an overstayer is notified of that determination by publication in a newspaper of general circulation in the commonwealth once in each of two successive weeks,” said Kaipat.
“Any person identified as an overstayer erroneously (whose documentation allows continued stay in the commonwealth) is given 30 days to report to the appropriate office with the documentation necessary to correct the error,” she added.
